Pull For Michael Vick’s Redemption Song to Become a Smash Hit

In 1979, after becoming diagnosed with melanoma, a cancer that would later take his life, Bob Marley began recording what would be his final album, Uprising. His mother Rita labeled it a concept album, conveying the pain he was in during his final days and how he was dealing with his own mortality.

The last track on the album is titled Redemption Song, which rated No. 66 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s 2004 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. 

I’m not sure how Marley would feel about Michael Vick if he were still alive today, but if I were to guess, I’d think he would be rooting for Vick in his second chance at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I’ll take it a step further. I hope Vick’s Redemption Story rises to the top of the charts in 2009 and later takes the top spot on ESPN or Sporting News‘ list of the Greatest Comeback Stories in Sports History when recalled 30 years down the line. 

About 90 percent of the population still feels bitter towards Vick and believes his punishment didn’t fit the heinous crimes he committed while running a dog fighting ring out of his Virginia home for five years.

Fine. You are entitled to that opinion, but also understand that it isn’t as if Vick’s entourage handed down his 23-month jail sentence. He went through the legal system, so if you feel that way be angry at the system, not Vick. 

Let’s take a second to consider all he has lost since Dec. 31, 2006, the last time Vick played in an NFL game:

-Endorsement contracts with Nike, EA Sports, Kraft, Powerade, Rawlings, Coca-Cola, Hasbro and Airtran.

-All marketability and corporate status after once being considered one of the most popular and sought after athletes in the world.

-Roughly $100M in salary.

-Millions of dollars in assets due to bankruptcy.

In short, he has lost everything that made him, Michael Vick, the superstar. And he served about two years in prison. And he is still bankrupt and will be for the foreseeable future.

But yet he hasn’t done his time? Since the government owns you when you owe the banks as much money as Vick owes, he’s actually still doing time!

Back to his entourage for a minute. Don’t underestimate the impact the people he surrounded himself with had on his million mile fall from grace. 

No, Vick shouldn’t have been so attached to these so-called friends once the NFL came calling, but until he was drafted No.1 overall by Atlanta in 2001, he had never left the state of Virginia which make you wonder if he knew any better than to listen to his lifelong friends.

Vick grew up in Newport News, VA, the same place as NBA superstar Allen Iverson.

It was there that he witnessed his first dog fighting ring at the age of eight, and where Iverson’s best friend was shot and killed in broad daylight after an argument over who the best rapper was. Most of us can’t comprehend the things Vick lived or witnessed growing up.

That doesn’t excuse him of his actions, it just reinforces that maybe we are all a product of our placement.

To suggest that Tom Brady would be any different than Michael Vick had he been brought up in Vick’s neck of the woods is ignorant because how would we know?

It would be as ignorant as the people that say they would never have joined the Nazi’s in Hitler’s Germany because they weren’t raised that way and they are just too good a person. Well, no, you weren’t raised that way because you weren’t raised in Hitler’s Germany.

We’d all like to think we’re too good to do some of these things, but when you take a deeper look, just consider yourself blessed to have not been put in such settings and situations.

Vick is no different from any drunk or junkie that just made it through rehab. He had everything, he lost everything and is now back in society fighting like hell to get it all back. 

His second chance at life started a few months ago when he was released from prison, and his second chance in the NFL starts Sunday at 1 p.m. when he returns as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Vick’s story has a chance to be a truly inspiring tale, as we have never seen an athlete of his stature hit such a low and get back on his feet. He is 29, so if Vick were to have three productive years in the league from this point forward that would be great.

If he were to overcome bankruptcy and rebuild his nasty image and reputation, that would be Hollywood-worthy. He has been humbled and appears to be remorseful, which is a good start.

Bob Marley’s music career and life ended prematurely with a Redemption Song. Here’s to hoping Sunday is the start of something special in Michael Vick’s Redemption Story.

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Losing Hardly A Team Effort In Miami

It’s time to challenge whoever it was that coined the old sports adage “you win as a team and you lose as a team.”

Case study: the 2009 Miami Dolphins.

Very few of the franchise’s losses in my lifetime (1985-present) have been a team effort. In the Dan Marino era it was always the fault of the defense. In the A.D. (After Dan) years, the offense has struggled to score 17 points per game, negating one of the NFL’s best defenses.

But this is not going to be a lesson in team history because I don’t need to look any further than the first two weeks of this season to make my point.

Last night the Dolphins hosted a Monday Night Football game for the first time since 2004, losing 27-23 to the Indianapolis Colts after choking away a late lead.

This one was one defense. After putting up a stinker against Atlanta in Week 1, which I’ll get into more later, the Dolphins offense was perfect against the Colts.

Yes, perfect.

Peyton Manning is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time and if you can find a way to stop him, you will beat the Colts 100 percent of the time. It’s not easy, but the best way to go about it would be to run the ball effectively and control time of possession, keeping Manning off the field.

How did Miami do in those categories Monday night? They rushed for 239 yards on 49 carries, with Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams combining for 205 of them, an average of 4.9 yards per carry. 

And get this: the Dolphins held the ball for 45 minutes and 7 seconds to Indianapolis’ 14 minutes and 53 seconds. That isn’t a typo. The Colts played offense for less than a quarter and were still able to score 27 points and win the game.

That’s without the help of a short field or a cheap touchdown by the defense or special teams. Miami didn’t turn the ball over until Chad Pennington was intercepted on the last pass of the game when the clock stood at zero. 

Indianapolis scored the first points 12 seconds into the game on an 80-yard pass and the winning points were scored 32 seconds after Dolphins kicker Dan Carpenter hit a 45-yard field goal to put Miami ahead 23-20 with 3:50 remaining. 

The worst part is there are no excuses for this once-proud defense to fall back on. They weren’t playing on tired legs in the fourth quarter, which can happen in the sweltering heat of South Florida. They were only on the field for 35 plays for cryin’ out loud! That is less than a half’s worth of snaps in an average NFL game!

It wasn’t the refs fault since Miami was whistled for just 20 yards worth of penalties, and I know the Colts have Manning, but this is not 2006.

Reggie Wayne is great and Dallas Clark is a nice player, but they have no running game and it wasn’t Marvin Harrison who took a receiver screen 48 yards to score the winning touchdown, it was Pierre Garcon. Who? 

When asked how a team could possibly lose a game after dominating the ball the way the Dolphins did, Pennington said he was “at a loss for words.” That’s exactly what he should have said because it’s Jason Taylor and Joey Porter, the captains of the defense, who have the explaining to do. 

So Week Two was on Taylor, Porter and Co, but boy was Week One a different story.

In the 19-7 loss to the Falcons the Dolphins offense was, to put it kindly, pitiful. After committing a historically efficient 13 turnovers during the entire 2008 season, the offense gave it away four times against Atlanta, and those mishaps turned into nine points.

Pennington’s crew only mustered 259 yards of total offense and didn’t score a point until the 3:22 mark of the fourth quarter. The crazy thing is Atlanta didn’t put the game away until Jason Elam hit a 50-yard field goal with 7:35 left to make it 19-0. 

Why is that so crazy you ask? Because thanks to turnovers by the offense and poor special teams coverage, the Falcons were able to start six possessions on Miami’s side of the field. An offense averages about 12 possessions per game, so if half of them are starting on your side of the 50 yards line, you’re in trouble.

But the Dolphins defense allowed just one score in Atlanta’s four trips to the red zone, held Michael Turner to 65 yards on 22 carries and gave up 281 yards of total offense, only 22 more than the pathetic Miami offense had that afternoon. 

Now I know Matt Ryan isn’t anywhere close to being at the same level as Manning, but there is no question that the Falcons have more weapons and a more balanced offense then the one Indianapolis fielded last night, so where was the unit that showed up in Atlanta?

And why couldn’t the offense control the ball the way it did versus the Colts against an equally suspect Falcons defense?

Last year’s transformation from a 1-15 bunch of losers to an 11-5 division champion was even more amazing because Miami rose to that level after starting the season 0-2.

That group didn’t come together until Week 3, in a now legendary (thanks to the unveiling of the Wildcat) 38-13 beating of the New England Patriots in Foxboro.

One year later the scene is set almost the same. The Dolphins are 0-2 and must beat a Super Bowl contender, the San Diego Chargers, on the road in order to keep their team bus from veering into the No Playoffs Zone, which is the road you’re stuck on at 0-3.

Tony Sparano can use the New England game as motivation and proof that it can be done. Regardless of what tactic he chooses, he better find a way to get the whole to play at a high level, rather than just some of its parts.

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Going Inside The Mind of Kawika Mitchell

 

Aggressive Offense in Buffalo? You Better ‘Bill-eve’ It

Woody Hayes, the man responsible for turning the Ohio State Buckeyes into the college football powerhouse it is today, became a coaching legend through his ultra-conservative offensive philosophy known as “three yards and a cloud of dust.”

The bread and butter play in Hayes’ playbook was a fullback off-tackle run, one his teams executed so flawlessly that it earned him 205 wins, 13 Big Ten Conference championships and five national titles in 28 seasons at the helm in Columbus.

Call it passive, boring or redundant, or whichever adjective you prefer, but place your label knowing that all NFL coaches would accept being called “boring” if it added a few Lombardi trophies to their legacy.

And while the Buffalo Bills of present day would never be confused with Hayes’ Buckeyes of the 70’s, in terms of success or style, when was the last time you used the words aggressive or exciting to describe their offense? Probably 1993, the last great year in the Jim Kelly-Andre Reed-Thurman Thomas era.

The odds of the 2009 Bills being as prolific as the ’93 team are slim, but there is reason to believe they will be much closer to the Greatest Show on Turf than three yards and a cloud of dust.

Buffalo’s most glaring issue on offense the past 10 years or so has been its predictability. How many times did you find yourself watching the game and on a 3rd-and-2, saying without hesitation, “Here comes a run up the middle”?

Or on 2nd or 3rd-and-long you could yell out the name of the receiver the quarterback was targeting, whether it was Eric Moulds, Peerless Price, or Lee Evans?

Aside from the lack of creativity, the Bills have also been short on viable options. Every offensive coordinator would love to use three or four wide receivers in a game, but at the end of the day, they are going to call plays for the players they trust the most.

Offensive coordinator Turk Schonert will have plenty of dependable options to work with this year, so any vanilla scheme or return to predictability should be deemed inexcusable.

Trent Edwards is entering his third professional season and showed Pro Bowl potential in spurts during the 2008 season. He is smart, poised, and very accurate, and seems to have earned the trust of the coaching staff.

He will be throwing to arguably the deepest foursome of pass-catchers in the NFL in Terrell Owens, Lee Evans, Josh Reed, and James Hardy. 

The thing that makes the offense scary is that it also has a loaded backfield with Marshawn Lynch, Fred Jackson, and former Indianapolis Colt, Dominic Rhodes.

This group will force defensive coordinators to lose sleep at night. There are playmakers (Owens and Evans), possession receivers (Reed), running backs with speed (Jackson), and ones with a more bruising style (Lynch). 

For the first time in years the Bills are—say it with me now—versatile.

If the defense puts eight in the box, they can spread you out. Show five or six defensive backs, they can expose you with the run. 

Some will look at the numbers and say the offensive philosophy won’t change much from a season ago. That’s because the numbers will show Buffalo to be a pass-first offense. 

The Bills ran 956 plays on offense in 2008 and dropped back to throw on 54 percent of them.

That pass-run ratio is about as close to 50/50 as you will see in the NFL, and while they passed more than they ran, consider that Buffalo was often playing from behind, forcing them to play catch up.

In 16 games last season, the Bills never led in six and were tied or trailed in the fourth quarter of four of their seven victories. Such situations force an offense to become one dimensional. 

With an inexperienced Edwards under center, Schonert wanted a run-first offense in ’08. While he and head coach Dick Jauron will talk all summer about how they will run to set up the pass, make no mistake the Bills will throw first to open running lanes in 2009.

Edwards is ready for increased responsibility and has all the weapons he needs to succeed, which is why I expect him to put the ball in the air on 57 or 58 percent of downs this season. Who knows what the results will be, but at the very least, the approach will be fearless and aggressive.

With Lynch, Rhodes, and Jackson, the Bills have a backfield capable of carrying them on any given Sunday, but expect the heavy lifting to be done by Edwards, Owens, and Co.

The NFL is a passing league, and Buffalo is finally catching up with the times, further distancing itself from the days of Woody Hayes.

 

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